Pete's bet
by roxygoth
Summary: "I bet you I could run this place for a month." Oh Pete, I bet you couldn't even run this place for a day. It's up to Pete to prove Mickey wrong, just a shame he chose Goofy... Also includes characters from Alice in Wonderland and Snow White.
1. Chapter 1

Hey! Roxy Goth here. This is my first time writing house of mouse fan fiction, so feedback would be greatly appreciated.

I do not own anything relating to Disney in any way shape or form.

"Mickey!" From the entrance of Mickey's Mouse's dressing room came Pete's voice. Mickey inwardly cringed, what did he want now? However being the polite mouse that he was he saiid.

"Hey Pete! How ya doing?"

"I'm doin' real great! And I've got something to tell ya. Erm, what was it? Oh yeah – I'm challenging you to a bet."

Mickey looked confused at that. "A bet…"

"Yeah! I bet you I could run this place for a month."

Oh Pete, I bet you couldn't even run this place for a day, Mickey thought to himself. Out loud however he said. "Oh really, Pete? You sure you can handle it, I mean, it does get really busy, what, with the hundreds of guests we get, and of course there's the staff as well…"

"The guests are no problem; just treat them all the same and you're there. And as for the staff, c'mon, they can't be that hard to manage."

Personally Mickey thought otherwise, the only staff member he could think of that didn't have their problems was Minnie, although he might be being a little biased there.

"I mean." Pete continued. "All you gotta do is tell 'em what to do, right?"

"All you gotta do is tell 'em what to do?" Mickey echoed, disbelievingly. God, no wonder Pete wasn't a manager if that was the attitude he had.

Pete seemed to not catch on to Mickey's tone as he said. "Yep!"

Mickey quickly thought, and the inkling of a plan began to form in his mind. "Okay then Pete." He said slowly. "I accept your challenge, bet, or whatever you want to call it. BUT, I'd like to change it a bit."

Pete stared at him. "Change it?"

"Yes. Instead of you running the house for a month how about you pick a member of staff and try your managering technique on them? See how it goes."

"All righty then. You got any suggestions as to who to pick?"

"Nope, I'm gonna leave it all up to you." Mickey grinned. He did that deliberately, so that when things inevitably went wrong, it would be no one's fault except Pete's.

The cat in questions eyes lit up and he started mentally scanning through the staff. Minnie? No, he was scared of her. Clarabelle? God no. Horace? No. Daisy, he didn't think he could put up with her for more than five minutes. Donald, no, no, no. Max? Not unless he wanted Goofy watching him 24/7. Goofy….Hold on a minute…

"Goofy." Pete finally announced, after what seemed an age to Mickey. At the mention of one of his best friend's, Mickey almost opened his mouth to try to tell Pete that that probable wasn't a good idea before catching himself. Let Pete find out himself.

"Goofy?" He said, out loud. "Yeah, sure, okay then. He's in the kitchen, preparing for the tea-time rush. Want me to take you to him?"

"Nah, I'm sure I can manage it." Pete assured him, airily.

Mickey shrugged at that. "Knock yourself out. But I'm observing, in order to make sure you do it right. And we'll ask Goofy what he thought at the end."

"Fine, but don't tell him about the bet, he may act differently if he knows." Pete warned. Mickey mimed zipping his lips shut, and Pete glared, before stalking of to the kitchen, Mickey following behind.


	2. giving the orders

Hey! Sorry I haven't updated in a while, I've been busy. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

See chapter 1 for the disclaimer.

Goofy was stressed. There was no way around it, the penguins seemed to e having a bad day, Max had complained of a headache earlier and Goofy was convinced it was flu, Gus had eaten all the food and to top it off he now had Pete coming towards him going.

"Hey, Goofy! How ya doin'?"

"I'm doing good thanks, Pete." Goofy replied good-naturedly, doing his best to appear cheerful. Mickey, who was standing in the doorway, frowned a little, after being friends with the Goof since college he knew Goofy wasn't as 'good' as he appeared to be. Pete however having not had that privilege, hadn't a clue.

"Fantastic. So…not long 'till the tea-time rush, eh?"

"No…" Goofy replied, uncertainly wondering where Pete was heading with this.

He found out soon enough. "Well then that's great. Still enough time to fix your mistakes!"

Goofys eyebrows went up in shock. "Mistakes?" What mistakes was the cat on about? He quickly scanned around the room, no, no mistakes.

Apparently Pete disagreed. "Yeah, for one thing what is an empty plate doing here?" He went over to a nearby table and picked up the offending plate. "What are you doing serving an empty plate? And who's that table for?" Pete abruptly turned to another table, which was pretty bare.

"For Snow White." Goofy curtly replied, not liking the way he was being spoken to.

"What!? But…you can't…she's a princess!"

Oh really? I thought she was a janitor. Goofy sarcastically thought. Of course he knew Snow White was a princess, she was one of the first princesses ever, everyone knew her story, did Pete think he'd been living in a hole for the last 80 years?

"Yes, I know, so what's wrong with it?" He said, instead.

"What's wrong with it? Everything! What's happened to the flowers? There are always flowers in the centre of the princess's tables. And why are there only one set of knife and forks per seat? Everyone knows you give princesses the full amount and why are there cushions on seven of the seats? And one on the table?" As Pete wittered on, Goofy turned and looked incredulously at Mickey who shrugged and mouthed 'go with it' to him.

Goofy nodded, he wasn't sure what was going on, but if Mickey was okay with it then so was he.

"Change the table to the same as the other princesses and tell me why is there no food on this plate?"

"Because it's a pizza with no base, no crust, no cheese, no sauce and no toppings." Goofy recited.

Pete looked at him as if he were mad. "No base, no cheese, no sauce and no toppings?" He repeated slowly. "Who...the…hell…would be mad enough to order that? Get another pizza!"

"Right away…sir." Goofy muttered, silently wishing he could come up with a way to make Pete regret the way he spoke to him. He may be a goof, but he wasn't an idiot!

"And don't forget to tell them it was all my idea!" He heard the cat holler after him.

Meanwhile Mickey gave a grin, this would be good.


	3. The Mad Hatter

Hey, I'm back! With the first update of 2015! YAY! Hope you all had a great new year.

Just to let you know I have a new fanfiction story out for 'Winnie-the-Pooh' called 'The Hundred-Acre House'. Feel free to check it out.

See chapter one for the disclaimer.

After Goofy had quickly sorted out all of his 'mistakes' the guests arrived and Mickey, dressed like a cowboy, started the show.

"Hey Y'all everybody! It's western night here at the house of mouse, and so we've got a western-themed Donald cartoon for you!" The guest politely applauded and the lights went down.

Goofy had been serving the guest for about ten minutes when suddenly there was a yell. "Hey, waiter! What's this supposed to be?"

Goofy quickly dished out Timon and Pumbaa's critter-salad and hurried over to the table where the yell had come from. It was the Mad-Hatters table and he did not look happy. Next to him the March Hare was pouring imaginary tea and Alice was looking apologetic.

"What seems to be the problem, sir?" Goofy said, politely.

"WHAT is THIS!?" The Mad-Hatter stared at the pizza on his place like it might attack him.

"It's your pizza, sir." Goofy replied, keeping a perfectly straight face although he really wanted to burst out laughing. He knew this would happen.

"This is not what I ordered. I ordered a pizza with no base, no crust, no cheese, no sauce and no toppings."

Goofy was about to reply when Pete appeared behind him. "What appears to be the problem, sir?"

Pete had been keeping an eye on the goof to see if he could pick up on any more mistakes. When he'd saw how the mad hatter was reacting he'd decided he better get over there and see what the goof had done wrong now.

The mad-hatter launched into a re-explanation while goofy slid off. He went into the kitchen, paused and then burst out laughing, much to the confusion of Gus and the penguins. Then he heard Mickeys voice.

"Everything all right? I couldn't help noting the Mad-Hatter seemed a little…wound up." As the manager Mickey needed to be aware of any complaints.

Goofy pulled himself together and gave a quick recap of what had happened to his friend. "Right." Mickey said, after hearing the tale. "And I trust you're going to put this right?"

"Obviously."

"Good, I'm needed on in five minutes. See ya!" And the door swung shut.

Goofy smiled as he got the empty plate he'd originally served from the sideboard. He took a deep breath and composed himself like they'd taught him how to at drama college and went back out to the table.

Where Pete and the M-H were in the middle of an argument. Goofy frowned, the number one rule was that the customer was always right and one would think Pete would be aware of that. He needed to fix this.

"Almighty then, here we go, one pizza." He placed the plate under the M-Hs nose.

"Ah, this is exactly what I wanted." The M-H said, much to the confusion of Pete. "I don't know why you got it wrong, you never normally do."

This was the moment goofy had been waiting for. "Well you see, I can't take all the credit, this was all PETE's idea!" Goofy swung an arm around Pete's broad shoulders, much to the cat's horror.

And then Goofy hurried away as Pete and the M-H got into another argument.

"Goofy!" He looked and saw Mickey waving at him from the wings and made a bee-line over. "How'd it go?"

"I gave him the plate and made _sure _he knew it was all Pete's idea." Goofy grinned before hurrying of to serve Dumbo.

Mickey shook his head fondly, before glancing over at the M-H's table where Minnie was intervening. This bet was going quite well, he thought.


	4. Snow White

Hi, I'm back! Sorry I haven't updated for a while, life got in the way.

See chapter 1 for the disclaimer.

About halfway through the show Donald edged his way through the guests, showing Snow-white, the Prince and the seven dwarfs the way to their table.

"Sorry we're late." The prince said, apologetically. "But our carriage broke down, and we had to get another one."

Donald nodded. "No problem. Here you are." He indicated the table, which was now the same as all the other princesses table.

Snow-white looked at it in alarm, before saying quietly to Doc. "Are you alright with this?"

Doc, looking a little nervous, pushed his glasses up and said. "W-well, it's new, but, erm, we'll give it a go, right men?"

"Can't go any worse than last time." Grumpy said, scornfully. So they sat down and quickly realised they couldn't actually see anything, they were so small. As for Snow-white and the prince, they could only see the top of their heads.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Snow fretted.

"No problem. We'll just; we'll just…erm…"

"Stand up!" Happy said, still smiling as always. So they stood and now they could see and be seen.

"Right. I'm going to tip Donald and Max, it was awfully good of them to let us in."

"I'll come with you." Snow added and together they left.

Five minutes later they were back. "I can't believe the carriage-man couldn't find a place." The prince grumbled.

"Oh my god!" Snow gasped next to him.

"Yes that's pretty much what I feel…"

"No, I mean my god! Look!" The table was in havoc. Sneezy was sneezing; Happy was frowning while holding the flowers that were causing Sneezy to sneeze, Dopey was bawling and Doc was trying to comfort him. Bashful had his head on the table looking like he wanted to sink out of existence because everyone was looking at them, Grumpy was yelling at everyone to stop looking at them. The only one who seemed in relative peace was Sleepy, who was asleep on the table.

"You leave for five minutes…" The prince muttered under his breath as Snow made her way over to her friends.

"What in the world happened?"

Doc tried to explain, but got his words muddled up, after a couple of attempts Grumpy had had enough.

"I'll tell ya what happened! These blasted flowers are making Sneezy sneeze, Sleepy's gonna have a crick in his neck because he's fell asleep on the table, and none of us can figure out why there's three sets of knives and forks! We only need one!"

At that Dopey let out another wail and threw himself at Snow, who started rubbing his back. Doc rubbed his eyes tiredly and looked at the blob that was the prince. "So you going to are do what? I mean, er, what are you going to do?"

The prince shook himself back to reality and instantly beckoned over Goofy, who had been serving Sleeping Beauty. "What seems to be the problem sir?" He said politely.

The prince started at him as if he was mad. "What seems to be the problem? I'll tell you what the problem is! You've put flowers on the table! You've given them too many sets of knives and forks and they don't have any cushions!" Realising he was now being stared at the prince took a moment to compose himself. "Fix it."

"Righty-oh, your majesty!" Goofy took off at maximum speed, grabbed a handful of cushions, whisked back and handed one to each dwarf and then put the extra one under Sleepy's head. He then took away the extra knives and forks and finally took the flowers out of a now-smiling Happy's hands. "There you go." He said to the Prince as Snow made her way over, having sat Dopey back down.

"I don't understand." She said, resting a hand on her husband's arm. "You're usually so good, I mean we told you the first night this happened and you've always had it done every other time we've been here."

"Well, you see, it's something we're trying out. It was Pete's idea. Would you like me to fetch him and your free meals?" Goofy said, feigning innocence.

"Yes please." The prince said steely as Snow went back to the table.

Goofy found Pete annoying Minnie. "Mr Pete sir. The price wants to see you."

"Which one?"

"Snow white's one."

"Righty-oh." As Pete walked of, Minnie shot a look at Goofy who was sniggering quietly.

"What have you done?"

"I haven't done anything except what Pete asked me to. Oh boy! I'd love to see Pete's face when the prince tells him of, but it would look suspicious." He went quiet for a minute, before saying. "I know! It's my break now, I'll go visit Maxie and see what he's been up to!" And with a cheery wave Goofy was off, leaving Minnie feeling very confused.


	5. Maxy!

**Hey! Okay, I admit I did forget about this story a little, but then Mega M reviewed it and reminded me that it did exist. So here's the last chapter for your enjoyment.**

**See chapter 1 for the disclaimer.**

"Okay then, sir, if you want to go straight to the reception desk, Daisy will deal with you." Max recited to Captain Hook, who tipped his hat in reply and stalked of. Max let out a breath he always felt a bit nervous talking to the villains. Then a voice broke him out of his thoughts.

"Yoo-hoo! Maxy!"

'Oh no' Max thought to himself as his dad slung an arm around him and squeezed him so tight Max briefly thought he was being hugged by Kaa. "Dad…need…to…breathe…"

"Hyuk, Hyuk. Sorry Maxy, I just came out here to see how you were doin'!"

Translation, I'm bored and didn't have anyone else to annoy, Max thought to himself. "Really dad?" He said instead. "That's great, I'm great, how's your shift going?"

Considering he asked that question every night, Max was immediately concerned when his dad frowned. He hardly ever saw his dad frown and on the rare occasions he did it was usually because max had done something wrong or someone had upset him. Cue Max frantically searching his memory for anything that might count as 'bad behaviour', but when he came up with nothing, so that meant…

"Not well, I'm taking it, someone upset you?" Max questioned leaning to what he thought was a wall and what actually turned out to be the purple rope. After his dad helped him up and Max had reassured him he was fine Goofy continued.

"I dunno…there's something strange goin' on…Pete's here…"

"Well there you go problem solved."

"Nah, nah, listen to me Maxy, Pete's here and suddenly he seems to think he can…order me 'round or sum'thin'."

Max hummed in reply while trying to look interested. "Well, he is technically the one in charge of the place, dad…"

"Exact-aly! He's the one in charge of the building, not me, that's Mickey's job – he's the manager, not Pete."

Max paused and considered what his dad was saying. "Have you told Mickey this or not?"

"Ya see – tha's the strange thing, the first time he started ordering me around Mickey seemed fine with it."

"Then it's probably nothing to worry about. Now I've got Mona coming round next Saturday evening, would you mind not being in the house then please?"

His dad opened his mouth to reply when the clock on his wrist started beeping signalling his break was over. "Okay, then, Maxy I've gotta go back to work now – you be good okay? And tell me if that headache gets any worse!"

"Dad, I'm fine…" Max sighed, turning back to his job and trying to forget his dad ever spoke to him. He managed for about five minutes before deciding that what his dad told him didn't make sense because why would Mickey be alright with his sort-of frenemy ordering one his mates around? He decided he better talk to the mouse himself and see what was going on. Well, after the show at least…

So half an hour later, all the guest had gone and Max sighed in relief before trundling inside and immediately spotting Mickey.

"Mickey!"

"Hey, Max, you alright?"

"Yeah fine, just wondering, dad collared me on my break and was saying something about Pete bossing him around and you being okay with it? I mean, not that I'm concerned or anything, but I would like to get the facts straight, if you don't mind."

Mickey gave a grin, assured him it was no problem and explained about the little bet he had going with Pete.

"And you didn't stop him choosing my dad?"

"Well, I thought about it, but the idea was that Pete's theory is that all you have to do with the staff is tell them what to do. Well – that's rubbish obviously. But Pete was never going to listen to me, so I thought he may as well learn for himself. He's the one that chose Goofy; I had nothing to do with it."

Max paused taking all of that in, when suddenly Pete appeared at the end of the corridor and hollered. "GOOFY!"

"Yhuh – huh." His dad appeared out of seemingly nowhere at Pete's shoulder.

"What was that? Every little thing I put right – they blamed me for! I've just had Snow White's prince scolding me for the last half-hour! I didn't think he was going to stop!"

"He wouldn't if Doc hadn't made him leave." Mickey interjected.

"Doc made him leave?" Max parroted back.

Mickey gave him a wide smile. "Yeah, it was hilarious, he basically just said to the prince. 'I don't care who you are, how good looking you are, or if you broke a curse, if you don't get in that carriage within' the next five minutes – we're leaving without you.' It was one of the most hilarious things I've seen in my life…"

"You musta had a pretty sad life then." Pete sniped, turning back to Goofy and ignoring Mickey's death glare he continued. "And the funny thing was they all seemed under the impression it was MY idea."

"That's because it was." Goofy said, unusually seriously. "Remember? You yelled for me to 'Don't forget to tell them it was all my idea.' So I did – you're welcome. C'mon Maxy lets go."

"That was awesome! Dad – you've got to tell Mona that when she comes round Saturday!"

"I thought you didn't want me there?"

"Well, okay maybe I do, just try not to embarrass me…"

As the door swung shut, Pete was left staring after them, mouth dropped open in a quite comic look. Mickey stepped forward and closed it again.

"Not as easy as it looks, is it Pete? I believe I won that bet…"

"I…I…I got outsmarted…by Goofy!"

"Yeah, you did. Never judge a book by its cover, eh Pete?" And with that Mickey went out front to meet Minnie.


End file.
